Day 09 - Last Sailing Day

We were the first schooner to pull up anchor and get underway. We again didn’t have any wind and had to start out with the motor. We went up to the new bridge at Bucksport. They just finished the bridge a few years ago and look like they are starting to remove the old one. We went past Fort Knox (a different one than where we have our gold) and the paper mill that used to provide the paper for Sear’s catalogs.



On the way back down, the wind picked up and we went under sail. Every time we would get close to another schooner, Captain John would try to race the other ship. Eric, the first mate, was allowed to pilot after a while. We beat every boat we came across. Eric says when ever two or more schooners get close to each other, there is always a race.

We cruised through a few of the towns to see what was going on. We got to see a coal freighter being unloaded in Searsport. We gave the townsfolk in Camden a thrill when a few other schooners and we buzzed the harbor.





We pulled into Gilkey Harbor. It is where the rich have vacation homes. Several were pointed out to us that are owned by celebrities and well known business people. There were some really nice looking homes along the shore.

When it got dark we saw a slide show of the trip taken by one of the passengers, Greg. He is a talented photographer and the entire ship enjoyed seeing his pictures. Logan, the youngest of the crew at 16, brought out his fiddle and played for us. He is also very talented.

Quite a few schooners were anchored close by and you could hear passengers on the various ships singing patriotic songs since it was July 4th. Captain John had boxes and boxes of sparklers for us to light as long as we held them over the water as he didn’t want us to burn down his ship.



Finally, we ended the night with a game of spoons. There was one less spoon than the number of participants. We were given four cards. The dealer would pick a card off of the stack and either keep or discard a card. Cards were passed around the table as quickly as you could. When the first person reached four of a kind, they would grab a spoon. You had to watch for that first spoon. After people started noticing that spoons were being taken, it would break into a free for all to get the last spoons. Many times when I would jump up for a spoon, my stool would fall over onto the people sitting behind me. Perhaps if I were more sober, I would have paid more attention to the stool.

It was sad to know that this was our last night on the schooner. However, tomorrow we would be going back to daily showers!